Category Archives: Internet

College is hard. From adjusting to living away from your family for the first time to figuring out how to navigate academics to making friends, these 4-ish years of your life are full of new challenges.

I’ve always wanted to start an advice column. Now that I’m in my senior year, I’m taking advantage of my Wesleyan/life wisdom (also being managing editor of Wesleying and therefore being able to kinda do whatever I want) by starting a weekly advice column! Read on to learn more:

Welcome to Ask Wesleying! Each week I will answer questions from students just like you about anything having to do with anything and everything Wesleyan University: social life, academics, living on your own, roommates, hookup culture, extracurriculars, meal plans, and more!

In order for this to work, y’all have to send in some questions! Questions can be submitted anonymously via this form, or less-anonymously by emailing us at staff[at]wesleying[dot]org (put “Ask Wesleying” in the subject line)! All questions will be answered and posted anonymously, even if you email us including your name. Some weeks, I might reach out to other writers or my friends to guest-answer your questions!

Before we begin, here’s where you can find the welcome post (so that you can binge read from the beginning), and here’s where you can find last year’s edition of this post.

Hello, and welcome to the 8th annual edition of the Unofficial Orientation Series. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing everything you need to know about the World Wide Web (and all things affiliated with it). Actually, we’ll be discussing everything you need to know about the Wes Wide Web. If you’ve reached this far, you’ve proved your competence in terms of navigating through some of Wesleyan’s digital landscape. But, my dear Prefrosh, there’s so much you have to learn. That’s where I come in – I’m going to teach you about the finer things in life, and all things in the WesTech multiverse.

At some point in your career at Wesleyan, The Argus just won’t come out soon enough or—heaven forbid—Wesleying won’t update quick enough for you to get some vital update or piece of news. Luckily for all of us, the fine people in charge of and around Wesleyan University are on top of this social media wagon, and sometimes, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are your best shot for up-to-the-minute information. But even beyond the immediate, some of these pages and feeds, run by the departments or by student groups or even by anonymous individuals, can be interesting, thought-provoking, hilarious, and full of discussions, tips, commentary, and quips that will enrich your experience here. Or at the very least, give you a cheap laugh.

Here’s an updated collection of the essential (and currently active) social media accounts, as well as some of Wesleying’s personal favorites. This list isn’t complete, and new accounts are being created every year. Like, does Summies really need a parody Twitter? Chime in once again for things you think were passed over, because the official school-approved list (which doesn’t even include Wesleying) just won’t suffice. There are also individual Twitter feeds (both student and alumni) you’ll find useful to follow, but you’re on your own for discovering those. Nobody uses Pinterest, so don’t bother looking.

So, in “holy shit, I am becoming ancient” news, the class of 2022 Regular Decision…decisions…were sent out on Saturday. This means that the frosh are slightly not frosh anymore-ish, and there will be an influx of doe-eyed prefrosh entering campus soon enough.

I took some time to meander over to the good ‘ol College Confidential, and it seems like there are some impressive SAT scores being accepted to Wesleyan. Not like they really matter. Screams in social constructs and racism and classism of standardized testing. Here’s the WesAdmissions adorable welcome post in case you missed it:

We’re in a tough spot. Our age group has to deal with a melting planet, a thriving possum population, and a plethora of potential employers that expect us to know how to use Excel. That sucks for us sassy NESCAC kids. In spite of these obstacles, there is supposed to be a light in the dark, a city upon a hill, a beautiful beacon of hope: memes.

But, alas, Wesleyan’s meme culture is less than ideal. I would call it bad.

You can add to the message board on the left side, which currently has posts like, “Can I access moodle from this” from guest and ‘i hate this’ from our very own michael roth.

In the center of the site, there’s the infamous bagel pb&j that haunted Soggy We$ Memes in a 3-post saga (courtesy of Oren Maximov ’17), complete with a poll to respond to the question of whether the bagel pb&j is indeed a sandwich.

At the bottom of the page there’s this gem (the button tragically doesn’t work, so you’re stuck with the points calculator):

There’s also a button saying, “Click here to go to the real Wesportal,” but, in an infuriating game of cat and mouse, it moves everytime you try to click on it.

We are extremely curious who did this, so if you have any leads, send them our way (staff[at]wesleying[dot]org)!

Every year, in search of some solid Halloween spookiness, I inevitably end up searching the internet for stories about jinns. What’s a jinn you ask? They show up in pop culture every so often; the jinn, or genie, that you probably know best is the Genie from Aladdin.

Jinns feature prominently in Islamic mythology. What’s interesting about the genre is that Jinns are actually based on Islamic literature and theology, and they’re mentioned many times in the Quran. Basically, if you believe in Islam, a belief in jinns tags along whether you want it to or not… kind of like your kid sister that follows you everywhere. For many Muslims such as myself, this lends the concept of Jinns a legitimacy that your average ghost story doesn’t have.

Also, shout out to the Buzzfeed podcast See Something Say Something by Ahmed Ali Akbar for doing an awesome yearly Halloween episode about jinns and halaloween ;)

Read on for some more background on jinns, as well as some jinn stories that’ll creep you the fuck out. I’ll leave you to decide whether you want to believe them or not.

The testimonials in this parody infomercial leave you with some pleasant mental images as to the accurate flavor of Cummies®. Lines describing the flavor include, “An almost empty glass of white wine with a little bit of ranch dressing plopped in”, “Three day old oyster water”, and “Black truffle that’s washed up under the Santa Monica Pier”.

The infomercial ends with an offer for a bonus bottle of Facielle by Cummies®, a lotion, and then a shot of Brent (played by Johnny) being splattered with the lotion in a rather suggestive way. Describing how many takes this shot took, Johnny said, “By the end, I looked like I’d just shot a bukake scene with 50 well-hydrated men.”

Wesleyan solicits donations from alumni year-round to support the many fundraising campaigns that keep Wesleyan afloat (but somehow still not need-blind…). Over the summer, I spoke with Cade Leebron ’14about her own campaign for alumni to speak up about the many issues that students and alumni alike see at the school. She began Text Wes Back to collect actual responses that she and other alumni sent back when Wesleyan texted them to donate money to the school.